By Edward Chaykovsky

Former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik feels the current king of the division, WBA/IBO champion Gennady "GGG" Golovkin (33-0, 30KOs), is without a serious dance partner.

Back during Pavlik's time, the middleweight division was pretty loaded with names like Sergio Martinez, Edison Miranda, Jermain Taylor, Arthur Abraham, Winky Wright.

At the moment Golovkin is running out of options due to scheduling issues and political conflicts with certain opponents being contracted exclusively to rival television networks.

"I feel bad for Golovkin because I think he’s a good fighter, I think he has all the tools but there’s nobody really in the weight class. It’s kind of not right to put these guys in the same category. The guys that I was fighting at the time, it was a very strong weight class," Pavlik told On The Ropes Boxing Radio .

Two opponents consistently being mentioned for Golovkin are Miguel Cotto and Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. Pavlik feels Cotto is way too small for GGG, but says Canelo is just the right candidate.

"Cotto fought Michael Jennings in New York and I fought Marco Antonio Rubio in Youngstown, and Cotto comes up to my neck. Cotto started at junior welterweight, so right now for Cotto to even be at middleweight, he’s a great fighter but I think he belongs at welterweight. He’s not a middleweight. If he was a tall junior welterweight, I could say, 'Maybe he can put the weight on,'" Pavlik said.

"I know Cotto walks around a little heavy but you got these guys coming down from 180lbs to make 160lbs. If I was him, I’d go to welterweight. I think right now a good fight for Golovkin right now would be Canelo, to see where he’s at. He has not fought anybody to say, 'This kid is the real deal.' I think he’s a great fighter, I think he’s talented as hell but I think that everybody’s waiting to see what would happen if he fought Canelo Alvarez."